rewards

Junior really proved himself with that Netflix call. The days of “Sorry, Mr. Icahn, I didn’t realize you were on a call” and “I’m sorry, sir, I’ll make sure I keep my office more organized when investors visit” and pretending they hadn’t seen each other over the weekend at his cousin’s bar mitzvah may soon […]

Time was, if you were a successful broker on Wall Street, your company sent you on trips to mingle with other top producing brokers, at which the only planned activities included playing golf, getting drunk, and falling ass-backward into the pool. Then the financial crisis hit and suddenly firms couldn’t afford the bad press associated […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it received more than 3,000 tips in the past fiscal year. The SEC said the tips — 3,001 in all — came from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and from 49 countries. It announced the findings in a report required by the Dodd-Frank Act on the […]

4:00-4:05 Either people who have never taken part in a conference call are participating today and pressing buttons on their phone every five seconds or someone is thrusting someone else up against their office phone over and over and over again. 4:06 Gundlach is offering $1 million for information leading to the return of each […]

A couple weeks back, bond manager, art collector, and porn buff Jeffrey Gundlach had $10 million worth of goods taken him from his home. The loot definitely included pieces by artists Guy Rose (“The Cathedral Tours”) and Joseph Cornell (“Medici Boy”) and possibly included works by C. Everette Smythe (“A Trip Down Mammary Lane”), Jules […]

As you may have heard, at some point last week, bond manager Jeffrey Gundlach was robbed. Thieves took $10 million worth of stuff from the Doubleline founder’s Santa Monica pad, including a couple of paintings, a few watches, some high-priced wine, a 2010 Porsche Carrera 4S, and whatever cash was lying around. While it’s unclear if the burglars made away with Gundlach’s collection of priceless pornographic films and sexual apparatus; if he was targeted specifically because the thieves knew they could get their hands on the original copy of Dr. Fellatio 16; or if they were tipped off by JG’s regular pizza delivery guy, cable repairman, or pool boy, what is clear that Gundlach is pissed, pissed like a man who is no longer in possession of Ass Traffic Volume 2: The Director’s Cut. And that’s where you come in.

Mr Gundlach has reportedly offered a $100,000 reward for the return of his property. $1,000 is also being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those who carried out the raid, according to Santa Monica police.

And to the burglars, if you’re reading this, Gundlach will see your asses in court (the real kind, unless you want to settle this in Bondage Nookie Court in which case, get in touch with this lawyer).

Remember Bradley Birkenfeld? He’s the guy who single-handedly made the U.S. government’s case against UBS and forced the Swiss bank to hand over the names of thousands of tax cheats, which resulted in the US scoring $780 million from UBS and may have inspired some 33,000 Americans to “voluntarily disclose offshore accounts to the IRS, generating more than $5 billion.” And yet, despite his assistance, Birkenfeld wasn’t immediately thanked for a job well done. Instead, he was sentenced to forty months in prison (fair-ish, considering he showed a few clients how to avoid paying taxes himself) and told to piss off by the Internal Revenue Service, from whom he sought an award, because he was “not forthcoming about his own role in the scheme,” even as a Justice Department attorney admitted that “…without Mr. Birkenfeld walking into the door of the Department of Justice in the summer of 2007, I doubt as of today that this massive fraud would have been discovered by the US government” (or as his lawyer put it, “They didn’t know how to spell UBS until he showed up. He didn’t just give them a piece of the puzzle. He gave them the entire puzzle”). Now, after doing 32 months at Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution, getting let out early on account of “good-time credit,” and living in a halfway house in New Hampshire, Birkenfeld has finally been thrown a bone.

Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS AG banker who told the Internal Revenue Service how the bank helped thousands of Americans evade taxes, secured an IRS award of $104 million, an amount his lawyers said may be the largest ever for a U.S. whistle-blower. Birkenfeld told authorities how UBS bankers came to the U.S. to woo rich Americans, managed $20 billion of their assets, and helped them cheat the IRS. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2008, a year after reporting the bank’s conduct to the Justice Department, U.S. Senate, IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission. He was released from prison Aug. 1…Birkenfeld, 47, worked at Zurich-based UBS, the largest Swiss bank, for five years. He sought a reward from the IRS of as much as 30 percent of any taxes the agency recovered as a result of his whistle-blowing activities.

Clearly this whole thing should stir up a few questions inside you all, chief among them: how much money would it take to get you to befriend or get yourself employed with some rogue people so you can blow the whistle on them? Would you do any time for it? If so, how much? And are we talking Club Fed or a place where your roommate spoons you every night?

A couple months back we offered some advice to those considering taking up the insider trading game. It was that you strongly consider a) NOT discussing your activities with your spouse or b) vow now, no matter how bad it gets, to stay married to this guy or girl, ’cause if you don’t he/she will […]

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Jul 23, 2010 at 4:46 PM

SAC

Mary Jo White was the top federal prosecutor in New York City during Bill Bratton’s first run as the Big Apple’s top cop, and she learned a few lessons from his “broken windows” theory: Clean a place up a little, and throw the fucking book at the street urchins who are messing things up with […]